The present invention relates, in general, to fish landing nets or baskets, and more particularly to landing nets which are adapted to be lowered along a fishing line for recovery of a fish hooked thereon.
As is well known in the fishing art, it often happens that the fishing tackle used to hook a fish is too light to permit easy landing of the catch, particularly where the catch must be lifted out of the water so that the full weight of the catch is on the fishing line. In order to prevent breakage in such situations, landing nets of various designs have been devised. An example of such a net is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 2,921,397 wherein a landing net is provided with a zipper to allow entry of the fishing line into the center of the net so that it can be lowered over the catch.
Another example of the prior art is U.S. Pat. No. 1,797,251, which discloses a pair of spring-loaded ribs which apparently can be pried apart to allow the net to be positioned around a fishing line. A further example of the prior art is U.S. Pat. No. 2,782,546 wherein an open-sided landing net is provided with a rotatable ferrule which secures the sides of the net together and which is rotatable to allow a fishing line to pass into the net.
The prior art devices typified by the foregoing patents all suffer from the problem that they require considerable manipulation and require two hands to position them on the fishing line. When a fisherman is trying to maintain tension on the fishing line so as not to lose his catch while at the same time trying to position a landing net on the line, extreme difficulty is encountered with these devices, and for this reason, they have been found to be unsatisfactory.